hi folks very busy here, also packing up as we're leaving holland, and been ill for several days *and* getting the portable 3d printer up and running - it's all happening. we're due to launch soon, and are applying for RYF Certification to cover the average end-user. spoke to josh gay about that, he confirmed that the FSF is in no way concerned about the average technical user (which all of us are here on arm-netbooks), it's when proprietary software is available and installed via an easy click-point interface with absolutely no warnings whatsoever. so we've worked out the procedures for applying for and then including a RYF-Certified product on the same launch page as the rest. it's very specific but we'll manage fine.
nearly there, thank you to everyone for being so patient. EOMA68 is a long-term standard that has to be right first time it goes out. there's no possibility for correcting mistakes, as it would cause confusion. confusion automatically means failure so that can't happen. which is why i've had to bite the bullet, update the standard, and start again with the prototypes three times now, costing around $USD 10k each time. it is what it is. but i'm finally happy with the standard, the proof-of-concept, whilst in bits, works 100%, the modifications required are minor, so we launch.
l.
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
Well done, Luke! :) This sounds exciting...
Sorry to hear you've been sick, though. Get well soon, if you're not already there...
On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 4:21 PM, Christopher Havel laserhawk64@gmail.com wrote:
Well done, Luke! :) This sounds exciting...
thanks chris. yeah it is.
Sorry to hear you've been sick, though. Get well soon, if you're not already there...
just pushed too hard for about 4-5 months, 14-16 hours a day, and reduced outgoings for my sponsor by cutting out sports and high-energy food... had to have an effect some time. but ehh the main bulk of the work's done for now.
next phase is doing promotion and talks, then prepare the PCB designs for when the crowdfunding's in. i'll be over to the far east by then, so that i'm in place to keep an eye on things at the factories. learned that one already, it's completely insane to have such an important set of tasks without direct supervision when it takes a 48-hour round trip for email, and there are *three* different timezones involved - GMT-8, GMT and GMT+8.
l.
Just FYI, Luke, I've sent you an email off-list to your Gmail account. Nothing urgent, just a small favor -- if I'm allowed to ask ;) (...if I'm not, let me know and I won't ask again.)
C
On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 8:18 PM, Christopher Havel laserhawk64@gmail.com wrote:
Just FYI, Luke, I've sent you an email off-list to your Gmail account. Nothing urgent, just a small favor -- if I'm allowed to ask ;) (...if I'm not, let me know and I won't ask again.)
no problem
On Monday 23. May 2016 17.18.13 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
hi folks very busy here, also packing up as we're leaving holland, and been ill for several days *and* getting the portable 3d printer up and running - it's all happening. we're due to launch soon, and are applying for RYF Certification to cover the average end-user.
Good to hear that big things are finally happening! Not good to hear that you'd been unwell, however. Pace yourself, Luke! ;-)
spoke to josh gay about that, he confirmed that the FSF is in no way concerned about the average technical user (which all of us are here on arm-netbooks), it's when proprietary software is available and installed via an easy click-point interface with absolutely no warnings whatsoever. so we've worked out the procedures for applying for and then including a RYF-Certified product on the same launch page as the rest. it's very specific but we'll manage fine.
I look forward to seeing what has been decided here.
And will both the A20 and the jz4775 CPU cards be offered? Any others that might sneak in at the last moment, too?
Paul
On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 10:08 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
Good to hear that big things are finally happening! Not good to hear that you'd been unwell, however. Pace yourself, Luke! ;-)
:)
spoke to josh gay about that, he confirmed that the FSF is in no way concerned about the average technical user (which all of us are here on arm-netbooks), it's when proprietary software is available and installed via an easy click-point interface with absolutely no warnings whatsoever. so we've worked out the procedures for applying for and then including a RYF-Certified product on the same launch page as the rest. it's very specific but we'll manage fine.
I look forward to seeing what has been decided here.
this is for the A20. we have to apply for two exemptions, for the MALI 3D GPU and for the CEDARX VPU, but what works in our favour - bear in mind this is *only* for the "average end-user", absolutely in no way is anyone who is competent to follow "command-line" instructions included in the assessment, it really really is just the "point-click" users - is that when you run "lspci" you get nothing. when you run "lsusb" you get nothing. in fact, unless you've preinstalled certain software and compiled in certain modules (which we won't do), it's *literally* impossible to even find out that the GPU and the VPU are even there.
also working in our favour is the reverse-engineered version of libcedarx actually works. normally if an exemption is applied for, if the only available library is a proprietary one, it's a "strong minus". we still might get a "No, Sorry" based on the GPU alone.
And will both the A20 and the jz4775 CPU cards be offered? Any others that might sneak in at the last moment, too?
_maybe_. that's down to allwinner. if they can get me the DDR initialisation code that they linked into u-boot and so are required to provide it, then i'll try a rush-job creating an A64 card. but it'll be tough.
the jz4775 one i just haven't had time to investigate, i'll try to get to it, but we haven't even an OS for that one yet. the leemote OS is old but would be a proof-of-concept if nothing else
l.
On Thursday 26. May 2016 23.42.33 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
_maybe_. that's down to allwinner. if they can get me the DDR initialisation code that they linked into u-boot and so are required to provide it, then i'll try a rush-job creating an A64 card. but it'll be tough.
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around their kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit more with other people.
the jz4775 one i just haven't had time to investigate, i'll try to get to it, but we haven't even an OS for that one yet. the leemote OS is old but would be a proof-of-concept if nothing else
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could offer the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian is still out of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for the MIPS Creator CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products to what you'd be offering.
Of course, offering no bundled operating system would also be an option.
Paul
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 11:35 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
On Thursday 26. May 2016 23.42.33 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
_maybe_. that's down to allwinner. if they can get me the DDR initialisation code that they linked into u-boot and so are required to provide it, then i'll try a rush-job creating an A64 card. but it'll be tough.
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around their kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit more with other people.
interesting - what happened? been too busy - any links?
the jz4775 one i just haven't had time to investigate, i'll try to get to it, but we haven't even an OS for that one yet. the leemote OS is old but would be a proof-of-concept if nothing else
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could offer the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian is still out of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for the MIPS Creator CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products to what you'd be offering.
a modern kernel would be needed, the one i'm starting with is 3.0.8 (because that's what ingenic have that works) - any dependencies on udev tied to later versions and it's game over for a recent OS without a lot of extra work.
Of course, offering no bundled operating system would also be an option.
true.,, not ideal
On Friday 27. May 2016 01.08.19 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 11:35 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around their kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit more with other people.
interesting - what happened? been too busy - any links?
Sorry for the long links...
http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1108-security-alert-for-allwinner- sun8i-h3a83th8/
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/how-to-root-any-allwinner-device- running-android-and-most-of-the-chinese-pi-clones-which-bet-on-allwinner- android-linux-kernel/
It got quite a bit of wider coverage, too.
[...]
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could offer the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian is still out of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for the MIPS Creator CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products to what you'd be offering.
a modern kernel would be needed, the one i'm starting with is 3.0.8 (because that's what ingenic have that works) - any dependencies on udev tied to later versions and it's game over for a recent OS without a lot of extra work.
Did you not get various people doing Linux stuff for MIPS/Ingenic-based products involved at some point? The GCW-Zero uses the jz4770 and the developers appear to maintain a much more recent kernel:
https://github.com/gcwnow/linux
The MIPS Creator stuff should also be using more recent kernels, too, although the following probably isn't where the most recent work has been taking place:
https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_linux
Incidentally, it looks like the CI40 will run OpenWrt, not Debian:
https://community.imgtec.com/platforms/creator-ci40/
You might have more luck with the following:
https://git.linux-mips.org/cgit/linux-mti.git
Even the Ben NanoNote uses a more recent kernel than 3.0.8 - mine runs Debian Wheezy on a somewhat newer kernel - but I accept that you'd have to assess whether the jz4775 would really be supported properly in any non-Ingenic work.
I can't say that I've been tracking the state of Linux for a while. I did try to get a device-tree-capable kernel working on the NanoNote, but the kernel support for various devices wasn't there, and I'm not familiar enough with the different mechanisms to troubleshoot the various deficiencies. Of course, it doesn't help that Linux documentation is in general lacking and/or awful.
Paul
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, May 27, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
On Friday 27. May 2016 01.08.19 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 11:35 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around their kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit more with other people.
interesting - what happened? been too busy - any links?
Sorry for the long links...
http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1108-security-alert-for-allwinner- sun8i-h3a83th8/
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/how-to-root-any-allwinner-device- running-android-and-most-of-the-chinese-pi-clones-which-bet-on-allwinner- android-linux-kernel/
It got quite a bit of wider coverage, too.
ok just a way to debug devices bearing in mind that convenience and supporting companies to be able to sell as many products as they can is more important than security *sigh*. ok so that can always be commented out.
[...]
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could offer the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian is still out of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for the MIPS Creator CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products to what you'd be offering.
a modern kernel would be needed, the one i'm starting with is 3.0.8 (because that's what ingenic have that works) - any dependencies on udev tied to later versions and it's game over for a recent OS without a lot of extra work.
Did you not get various people doing Linux stuff for MIPS/Ingenic-based products involved at some point? The GCW-Zero uses the jz4770 and the developers appear to maintain a much more recent kernel:
https://github.com/gcwnow/linux
The MIPS Creator stuff should also be using more recent kernels, too, although the following probably isn't where the most recent work has been taking place:
https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_linux
Incidentally, it looks like the CI40 will run OpenWrt, not Debian:
https://community.imgtec.com/platforms/creator-ci40/
You might have more luck with the following:
thanks.
Even the Ben NanoNote uses a more recent kernel than 3.0.8 - mine runs Debian Wheezy on a somewhat newer kernel - but I accept that you'd have to assess whether the jz4775 would really be supported properly in any non-Ingenic work.
i can bootstrap up using known-good to known-good and/or at least get boards into people's hands once hardware's proven to work.
I can't say that I've been tracking the state of Linux for a while. I did try to get a device-tree-capable kernel working on the NanoNote, but the kernel support for various devices wasn't there, and I'm not familiar enough with the different mechanisms to troubleshoot the various deficiencies. Of course, it doesn't help that Linux documentation is in general lacking and/or awful.
i don't mind, as long as there's source.
Paul
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